Illusions of Grandeur: Sneak Peek!

Chapter One

The worst ideas always happened with the best of intentions behind them. The paved road to Hell and all that jazz. That was what ran through Alice’s mind as she stared up at the enormous mansion that towered over her.

It felt like the building itself was staring at her. She wasn’t sure if buildings could stare, but damn if this one wasn’t trying its hardest to do precisely that with its cavernous unlit windows. And damn if she wasn’t staring right back. The drive up the road to the huge estate had been long and winding with strange statuary lurking in the shadows. Figures of gods, creatures, of dragons and angels, or sometimes figures of total madness stood watch along the road like sentinels.

From the very moment a person approached this place, they were meant to feel unsettled. It was by design, and the design worked.

The parking lot had clearly been added later in the house’s history. It was far too large for a private home, and the signs that had been pounded into the dirt exclaiming loudly where the entrance was were clearly newer additions.

This place hadn’t always been a tourist destination. It had been the home of a man who had been heralded as a genius, a madman, a lunatic, and one of the greatest magicians of his time. Now, a hundred years later, it had been converted into a museum of his works and his collections.

Not to mention that the house itself was its own attraction, thanks to how little sense it made.

Julian Strande had been an eccentric; that much was clear.

And the Strande Estate proved it.

Alice knew this place existed—in the same way everybody knew about the tourist traps in their state. She never really paid it much attention. She grew up in San Jose, and when she moved to Wisconsin for work after college, she never had reason to drive out to nowhere to see it.

But now she had a very different reason for visiting the Estate. And it wasn’t to gawk at its weirdness. She was there for a job—one she really wasn’t quite sure if she was qualified for.

Unemployment did strange things to a person. Suddenly, any job looked like a good job. Losing her job had ruined everything. And after weeks of trying to find something close to where she lived, she had to throw a wider net. She was also pretty eager to get out of Milwaukee, if she were being honest with herself.

“Live-in Caretaker and Creative Maintenance Manager.” That was what the ad listing was for. What in the actual fuck was a “creative maintenance manager?” She had no idea. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she stared at the building that seemed to be watching her back. It was creepy as sin, but she needed a job. This one came with some nice perks. Room and board were covered, and it claimed that it also provided a “living wage” on top of that. No exact salary was listed, but that wasn’t uncommon in the current job market.

The ad said little more after that except a single sentence describing who they were looking for in a candidate. “Must be pragmatic, patient, and with a penchant for discovering unique solutions to impossible problems.” She was the first two. She wasn’t so sure about the last one, but she did enjoy puzzles. Tucking the newspaper back into her bag, she pulled the strap up higher onto her shoulder and stared once more at the mansion.

Who lists jobs in the paper anymore, really? She had only found it because she loved the crosswords and the sudoku puzzles. She went to flip to the back like she did every Sunday and passed by the job listings on the way. She figured it didn’t hurt to take a look. After she saw the listing in the paper for such a unique position in such an equally unique building, she had to look up the Strande Estate and learn about the bizarre man who had built it. She had hunted through every article and blog post she could find about the place.

All she learned was that pictures didn’t do it justice, and that there were a great deal of legends whispered about it.

Some were expected and cliché, like that the whole house was its own gigantic puzzle box. That it was one big illusion, designed by a master illusionist. One popular theory was that there was a secret treasure hidden somewhere in the walls of the house.

Some were darker, but no less expected—that the building was haunted by Julian Strande himself. The circumstances around his death were foggy. Everyone knew he was dead. He’d be well over a hundred and fifty years old at this point if he weren’t, but no one knew when it happened or where. There was no grave.

There was only a newspaper article announcing his death as proof he had died. Problematically, it had been written by Julian Strande. Thirty years after that, the museum opened in his name, run by his family. Alice figured they probably wanted to capitalize on all the weirdos coming to gawk at the place or try to break in. Better to charge admission instead of paying to repair all the broken locks and windows.

It had stayed that way ever since.

But some of the rumors were deeply sinister and far less easily explained as silly superstition and ghost stories. Namely, Alice had found a list of names of people who had supposedly gone missing in the home since the master magician’s death.

 All the worst ideas have the best intentions, she repeated to herself as she glanced down at the newspaper poking out of her bag. It was hope that sent her here, after all. She tried to hold on to that optimism and keep her wariness from sending her back into her little beat-up Toyota. After seeing the giant, creepy house, she was tempted to turn around and find the highway some forty-five minutes back through the Wisconsin cornfields.

She wasn’t one to take risks. She wasn’t one to go out on the limb. She didn’t like “putting herself out there.” She always found herself slapped to the ground like a deflated volleyball when she did. Lying in the sand with only a mouth full of grit to show for her efforts.

Life was quiet. Life was simple. Expected.

Then her life had changed. Then things weren’t so expected anymore.

She had lost her job. It wasn’t a very good job—operations manager for some little non-profit music school—but it had been something. It had been her rock. That, and the videogames she played. And the books she read. And the movies she watched. And her art projects. And her shiny new 3D printer. And her cat.

Alice didn’t get out much.

Not because anything terrible had ever happened to her. She didn’t have any sort of tragic excuse. She simply didn’t like people. They were loud, troublesome, and always got in her way. She liked everywhere that wasn’t real. Stories. Fantasies. Illusions. Anywhere she could lose herself that was better than where she was.

But necessity had driven her out of her safe routine and into the wild world of unemployment. And it had driven her to call to ask after the ad in the paper. She had asked if they wanted her resumé, but after talking to someone on the phone for ten minutes—some guy named Charles who said he ran the place—he had asked her in to interview.

And so, here she was.

Being stared at by a giant-ass, creepy-as-hell super-mansion. It wasn’t big. It was fucking huge.

A hundred and ninety-two rooms, the internet site had boasted. Most not connected to each other in any logical way. It had happily claimed that no map of the building had ever successfully been drawn. She shook her head. Bastards had never met AutoCAD or SketchUp, apparently.

It was all marketing. It was all about making the sale and less about what was behind the wrapper. And that was exactly what she was supposed to do right now—market herself. She needed the job. She wasn’t so sure she liked the idea of living in a gigantic, spooky-ass mansion, but it was better than the alternative, which was to beg her family to let her move in with them. She shuddered at the idea of having to move back in with her aunt and uncle who had raised her.

Nice people…but she wanted to be independent. She was an adult. She wasn’t a kid.

Big, spooky-ass house or not.

She took a breath, held it, and let it out in a rush. She tugged on her coat, smoothed her silk blouse, and rubbed her lips together to make sure her lipstick didn’t feel too dry. It was only a job interview. Only a job interview. She kept repeating it to herself. She’d done this a hundred times already in the past three weeks. It was a simple, easy interview.

In a late-period Victorian estate that was staring at her.

Like it wanted to eat her.

***

Hello, little rabbit…And who’re you?

She was nervous. Smart thing. He could sense it from where he lurked. And he was terribly good at lurking. Without even considering it boasting, he knew he was terribly good at most things. The young girl had long blonde hair that was tossed about in the wind. He could not see much of her from where he—so perfectly and skillfully—loomed, but she brought a smile out of him. He wondered what color her eyes were. They looked so very large.

Pretty little rabbit.

He trailed his fingers over the glass pane of one of the fourth-floor tower windows. As he did, her head turned up toward him. He drew back in surprise before he realized she could not possibly see him for two reasons.

One, the room was dark. Not a single light was glowing inside the room he occupied. It was early morning, and the sun would not have illuminated him from outside.

And two, far more importantly—in fact, so notable he likely should have had that thought first—he was entirely invisible.

It was that reminder of his state that sent him back to the glass to peer down at her. Her gaze had moved on toward the door. That settled it. It had only been luck. She had not seen him.

Good.

That would rather ruin all his fun if she had. Troublesome things, mediums. They were either charlatans or spoilsports. Either way, he always wanted to throw them off a cliff.

He smiled in the memory of the few times he had.

He snapped back into the moment and watched the girl walk to the front door. She checked her phone—a little black rectangular electronic device of a genre he could still not quite make sense of, although he did not care to try—before slipping it back into her pocket.

He heard a clock chime from somewhere in the building at the exact moment she knocked on the door. Eight in the morning. Right on time.

Punctual rabbit, aren’t you? I think we will have a lot of fun, you and I…

***

Alice jumped in surprise as the door flew open with her hand still in midair. She had been halfway through the second knock when the wood surface suddenly moved inward. Wide-eyed, she looked at the man standing there—or rather, at his shirt.

She trailed her attention up.

Oh, goodness. He was rather tall. Oh. And he was cute. Very cute. And she was staring like an idiot. She coughed and lowered her hand, brushing her palm against her coat nervously.

“Did I startle you?” He smiled.

“A bit, sorry.”

“Do you startle easy, Ms…?”

“Monroe. Alice Monroe.” She did her best to smile back. She held her hand out to him now. He wasn’t simply cute—the man was handsome. Beautiful, sharp features rode the line of what might be considered masculine. He had blond hair kept a little long and swept away from his face, although a few strands fell along his high hairline and along his temples. He took her hand and matched her smile with one of his own. “And I suppose I’ve never really been in the position to be startled frequently enough to know if that’s the case.”

“Well, you might have cause to find out. This place is full of surprises, I’m afraid.” He dropped her hand after the appropriate amount of time and took a step back, gesturing his arm wide to invite her inside. “Welcome to the Strande Estate. My name is Charles Mensonge. Did you have any trouble finding the place?”

“The twenty signs on the way here weren’t easy to miss.” She chuckled and stepped into the foyer. She made it four steps before she found herself gaping. She knew her mouth had fallen open. “Wow…”

The marble floor was two-toned in black and white squares. That itself wasn’t unique, but the spiral they formed twining toward the middle was intricate and dizzying. It looked like one of the hypnotism wheels magicians used to use, and as she shifted her gaze, it seemed to move like an optical illusion. It was mirrored by a stairwell that wound up from around it up to the second floor and the third. It curled around the center foyer and up into the early morning light that streamed in from arches and windows that soared overhead.

Doors—many, many doors—led from the room in all directions. Some were roped off with red velvet cords attached to brass stanchions or were labeled with emergency exit or staff only and the like. They bore all the hallmarks of the things that must have needed to change to make a place like this legal for the public.

And to help them get out.

She knew now why the pictures didn’t do it justice. There was simply too much detail to make heads or tails of what she was looking at. Every square inch of wood paneling, of trim, or of wainscoting was meticulously hand carved. Animals, fruits, strange creatures, dragons twisting and trailing around each other. Rabbits and doves were a repeated metaphor.

Magician. Right.

There was so much of it, all painted bright colors. She didn’t know where to look. She didn’t know where she was supposed to look. It felt dizzying. She expected that was very much the goal.

She took a few steps into the foyer to look straight up, and she nearly lost her balance from the view. It looked like it went on forever! There was no way there were that many floors. She wavered again on her feet, but she couldn’t stop looking at what she saw.

There were fifty rows or more of windows climbing up over her. Some were too small to count as they ran off into the distance that culminated in a single chandelier that must have been hundreds of feet above her. “That’s not possible.” She had seen a tower when she walked up, but it wasn’t right over the lobby, and it certainly hadn’t been hundreds of feet tall.

A hand on her shoulder steadied her wavering. Charles. She was too in awe of what she was looking at to pull away from him. “It’s an illusion. Can you guess how it’s done?” He had a sharp voice—one that was both low and edged like a blade at the same time.

“It’s not an infinity mirror. There aren’t enough lights up there to create that effect, and there’s only the one chandelier. It’d keep repeating too. So…” She furrowed her brow and thought it over. She loved puzzles. She loved these kinds of things. She knew every trick in the book—or she thought she did.

Some tricks weren’t written in books. She suspected this place had quite a few of them.

It wasn’t a mirror effect, so that left only a few options. She took a guess. “Forced perspective? Is that a really tiny chandelier up there? Is the whole tower actually a cone that tapers as it goes up?”

“Correct!” He laughed. “Very good.”

His laugh finally brought her gaze back to him as she stopped gaping at the illusion in the ceiling. That and her correct answer both made her smile. The sound of his voice was both eerie and welcoming at the same time. But there was something about him that instantly felt a tiny bit sinister.

She was painting the man in a bad light. The building was spooky, and it was making him seem the same way. He was probably fine out of context. “Thanks.”

“Come, then. Let’s go to my office to talk.” He began to lead the way, shoving his hands in his pants pockets as he did. He wore a long-sleeved white button down that was rolled up past his elbows and tucked into a pair of black slacks. The top few buttons had been undone, she noticed. His shoes, while they were probably once shiny, looked a little neglected. “It’s a bit of a weird walk, I warn you.”

“It’s all right. I don’t mind walking.”

“Good! Because if this works out, you’ll put in your miles, that’s for certain.” He shot a grin at her over his shoulder. “This place is a bit of a maze.”

“I read as much.” She found herself looking around her curiously as they walked. Every nook held something that she could stop to stare at for hours. A strange statue. A bunch of mandolins stacked together and stuffed into the wall, framed like they were a painting. She suspected they moved, judging by all the bits of strings and wires coming from them.

She loved things like that. Animatronics were her passion, and it took the threat of ruining her interview to keep her from dropping everything she was doing and poking at them. “A hundred and ninety-two rooms, right?”

“Mmhm. Not counting the basement, attic, crawlspaces, the carriage house, the greenhouse, the tower, the secret passageways—” He gestured a hand lazily in the air, drawing circles with it as he listed off all the house omitted from the number.

“Wait, what?” She chuckled. “Secret passageways?”

“Oh! Of course. There are miles of them. Weaving in and out, connecting floors together, creating shortcuts. Julian used them to save time, or to startle his guests. Or to save time in startling his guests. He liked to play pranks.”

“Magicians are paid pranksters, I suppose.”

“That’s one way to look at things. Do you much like magic, Ms. Monroe?”

“I love illusions. I love things that exist but shouldn’t. Anything that can bring life to something inanimate. I think magicians do that with the tricks they use. They can turn anything into something special. I’ll admit I don’t know much of the history behind it, and I don’t know any magic tricks myself, but I’ve always loved them. I hope a history degree in magic isn’t required for the position.”

“Hardly.” He shrugged. “Or else nobody would apply. The fact that you’re interested is enough, Ms. Monroe. A very good answer.”

“Please, call me Alice.” She was barely looking where she was going. There were stained glass fixtures everywhere. Even some as a tabletop, glowing from lights beneath the surface. Everything she saw was a little twisted and strange, though. A bit off. A bit too weird. It wasn’t simply fancy; it was as though it had been dreamed up during a migraine or a fever dream. Railings on walkways went up to bookcases that ended abruptly against walls. Stairs that went nowhere.

Every ten steps, she saw something new.

“And you can call me Charles.” He paused as they walked. In the silence, she realized how absolutely quiet the building was. She supposed that was a bit of a relief. With all the potentially moving bits and pieces, if they started playing randomly it would be worse. He broke into her thoughts. “Are you at all handy?”

“Absolutely. I own more tools than clothes.” She smiled sheepishly. “I love tinkering with things. My uncle is a car mechanic, and I grew up playing with socket wrenches and wire strippers instead of Barbies and doll houses. I’m not trained—I’m probably rather awful”—Why did I say that? Oh, my god, I’m an idiot!—“But I build little moving art projects from time to time when I get the money.”

“Oh?”

“Do you know what animatronics are?”

“A fancy name for something I’m very familiar with, yes.” He smiled at her again over his shoulder. His eyes were hazel, and they caught the light. He really was incredibly pretty. You could crack geodes on his cheekbones. Focus, dumbfuck. “This place is filled with machinima.”

She couldn’t suppress an exited smile. She had seen pictures of them in the advertisements and on the websites, but it was another thing to hear it from him. The idea of seeing huge and antique automatons and calliopes filled her with a nearly childish glee. She hoped she would get a chance to see them on her trip, even if she didn’t get the job. “That’s so cool.”

He paused in his steps and seemed to think something over. Letting out a hum, he changed directions and took a right down a corridor instead of continuing straight. “Detour. Let me show you one.”

Yes! She kept that inside. Barely. She followed close behind him, still beaming at the idea. It seemed this was one of the rooms of collections she had read about. Julian Strande had collected stuff over his life. Not only magic tricks, but dolls, and toys, and seemingly endless arrays of claptrap. Mechanical contraptions. Nickelodeons and coin-operated boardwalk attractions. Glass bottles. Medical equipment. Advertisements. And now, they were all on display in cases or more creatively arranged in vignettes made to look like little homes cut inside of the walls.

The detail was so overwhelming, she couldn’t even see the parts of it. The whole of it became dizzying in its magnitude.

Why he shoved it all in freaking Spring Green, Wisconsin was beyond her. “It must take years to see everything.”

“It does. I’ve been here most my life, and I still don’t know as I could recognize it all. I’m sure there are some doors even I haven’t gone through.”

“How long have you worked here?”

“I was basically raised here. My mother’s grandmother was Julian’s baby sister. Great Grandma inherited the house when he died, and it’s passed down to me. I own this place now.”

“This must be a hell of a place to grow up.”

“It is. Although I’ve never had a single nightmare in my life. I’m pretty sure they know not to bother trying. They couldn’t hold a candle to this place. Here we are.” He pushed open a door and walked into a large room. In front of her on the other side of a railing was a collection of instruments arranged like a small chamber ensemble. A piano, two cellos, a stand-up bass, a violin, and a harpsichord all sat arranged. No one else was there. Judging by all the wires and the posts holding up the stringed instruments, she knew what was about to happen.

Charles walked over to the wall, and fishing a key out of his pocket, opened a small red box bolted there. It was a coin receptacle. The machines were coin-operated. Of course, they are. The place has to make money to survive.

He pushed a button on the box, and the room sprang to life.

She couldn’t help the smile that must have been plastered on her face. She moved to stand at the railing, watching in fascination and excitement as the instruments began to play themselves. It was a tango. The smaller instruments swayed side to side, meant to look like they were dancing on their actuators as the bows were pulled back and forth by mechanical arms.

Small pads on what must be pneumatic solenoid switches pressed down on the strings in the right ways to play the correct notes.

Well, mostly.

They were more than a bit out of tune. And the violin needed new bowstrings desperately.

“My last job was at a music school,” she said to him absentmindedly, not taking her eyes off the instruments. Something was wrong with the harpsichord. It seemed like it was missing every fourth or fifth note. She furrowed her brow, and without thinking, hopped the railing. Without even hesitating, she wove her way through the dancing instruments without even a glance back to Charles.

It was broken, and she wanted to know why.

Kneeling, she lay on her back to peer underneath the harpsichord. There was the problem! Several of the cables that pulled the mallets back to strike the keys had come off their hooks.

Picking up one, she watched as the gears—or sheets, or whatever it was that was driving the song—tugged on the cable in her fingers, trying to pull on the notes. Good, it was only the connections that were the problem.

Holding one up, it seemed like the cable had stretched a little and would easily slip back off if she replaced it. Digging through her bag, she found her Leatherman multi-tool. She flicked it open, and using the needle nose pliers, loosened the collars on the cables, nudged them down a little lower, then clamped them back on. Waiting for the wire to go slack, she popped it back onto the hook.

After repeating the process a few more times, the harpsichord was now happily playing all its notes. She watched it for a few seconds longer with a proud and satisfied smile before shuffling out from under the instrument to stand. She brushed herself off, grabbed her bag from the floor…

And realized exactly what she had done.

She had hopped the railing like an asshole—and began fiddling with a priceless antique and—oh. Oh, no. She really needed a job. She was really hoping this might be a new start for her.

Way to go, Alice. Way to go, you useless, stupid—

Charles was leaning on the wall, one shoulder against the trim. His arms were folded across his chest, and he had one ankle crossed over the other. He was like a painting of a man, he was so handsome. He had no right being real.

He was smiling at her. There was a strange, playful mischief in his eyes.

At least he didn’t look angry.

She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. I…get away from myself sometimes. I—I shouldn’t have—”

“You’re hired, Alice.”